September 26, 2008:
The use of
civilian contractors to support combat troops is becoming increasingly popular.
Current forecasts see a market $400 billion market for these services over the
next ten years. It was not just the U.S. that was using contractors in Iraq and
Afghanistan, but many other nations around the world have been doing the same
thing. It's particularly popular in Europe, but even Russia and China are
picking up on this.

This trend is actually a return to the past, when many of the
"non-combat" troops were civilians. Way back in the day, these people were
called "camp followers," and they took care of supply, support, medical care,
maintenance and "entertainment" (that's where the term "camp follower" got a
bad name). The majority of these people were men, and some of them were armed,
mainly for defending the camp if the combat troops got beat real bad and needed
somewhere to retreat to. The military is using a lot more civilians now. In an
age when most troops are highly paid volunteers, it's cheaper to hire
additional civilians, on short term contracts, than it is to recruit and train
more troops.

The military has actually been doing this, more and more, since the
1960s, but does not give a lot of publicity to the program. Mainly because some
of the contractors, especially those in medical jobs, get paid far more than
someone in uniform doing the same job. But many of the civilians, hired to do
what was previously done by soldiers, are making as much, or less, than the
troops were paid (including benefits.)

The military has always had a lot of civilians around, but more of them
are doing jobs in combat zones, or out in the field. Many of the civilians are
retired military, or have served for a few years. They know the drill, and what
they are getting into. Just as all those civilian truck drivers getting shot at
daily in Iraq, but doing it for the big payday.

A notable problem in military, and to a lesser extent, civilian
organizations in the past century was the changing ratio of "camp
followers" to "warriors." A century ago, most armies comprised
over 80 percent fighters and the rest "camp followers (support troops) in
uniform." Today the ratio is reversed, and therein resides a major
problem.

One of the great revolutions in military operations in this century has
been in the enormous increase in support troops. This after a sharp drop in the
proportion of camp followers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Before that it was
common for an army on the march to consist of 10-20 percent soldiers and the
rest camp followers. There was a reason for this. Armies "in the
field" were camping out and living
rough could be unhealthy and arduous if you didn't have a lot of servants along
to take care of the camping equipment and help out with the chores. Generals
usually had to allow a lot of camp followers in order to get the soldiers to go
along with the idea of campaigning. Only the most disciplined armies could do
away with all those camp followers and get the troops to do their own
housekeeping. The Romans had such an army, with less than half the
"troops" being camp followers. But the Romans system was not
re-invented until the 18th century, when many European armies trained their
troops to do their own chores in the field, just as the Romans had. In the 19th
century, steamships and railroads came along and made supplying the troops even
less labor intensive, and more dependent on civilian support
"troops." The widespread introduction of conscription in the 19th
century also made it possible to get your "camp followers" cheap by
drafting them and putting them in uniform.

Most of the growing quantities of supplies and equipment for the troops
was provided by civilians, in the form of workers who produced the weapons and
other supplies back home, and then ran the ships and railroads that carried all
this stuff to the troops. Gradually, as one gets closer to the fighting, more
and more of the support people are in uniform, often doing the same jobs as
others further back. But as a result of this trend, and the increasing use of
technology, today's armies are less than 20 percent warriors and the rest
"camp followers in uniform." In effect, the uniformed camp followers
outnumber the fighters in the armed forces. While the senior commanders still
come from the ranks of the fighters, they are vastly outnumbered by non-warrior
officers. This has created management problems in that the tail (support
troops) has an increasing tendency to wag the dog (the warriors.) While support
troops are critical to the effective performance of modern armed forces, it's
still the warriors that do the actual fighting. But in peacetime, the warrior
generals are increasingly outnumbered by the camp follower generals and this
has led to less of a "warrior" mentality and more of a "camp
follower" one. Naturally, in pitched battle, an army led by a warrior will
trounce one led by a camp follower. But you need a real, live war to prove that,
while in peacetime you can believe whatever you want, or can convince the media
and your superiors to embrace.

In the last half century, conscription has fallen out of favor, but
volunteer troops are too expensive to be used for a lot of support jobs, so
more and more of these chores are contracted out to civilians.

Even if you're in Iraq or Afghanistan, you often won't even notice a lot
of the contractor civilians. They often wear army combat uniforms, without any
rank insignia. Some are armed. They work for the army without being in the
army. It's going back to the past to find the future.